The present invention relates to an apparatus for dispensing viscous liquid from a flexible viscous liquid containing bag as well as the flexible bag itself, and more particularly, to a dispenser for viscous liquid food products which may be heated, such as cheese.
In the food service industry, it is often desirable to serve viscous food products which may be served at room temperature, such as ketchup, or which may be served at an elevated temperature, such as a cheese for nacho chips or other foods. It has been known to provide such products, including cheese, in flexible bags. The product must then be somehow dispensed or warmed and somehow dispensed from the bags. Numerous systems have previously been employed for dispensing food products. One prior known apparatus utilized a flexible container having a separately attached dispensing fitment for dispensing the food product. A hose is provided on or attached to the fitment and engaged in a peristaltic pump in order to pump product from the container. However, utilizing such an apparatus leaves a substantial amount of food product in the container which is not dispensed and is eventually disposed of when the majority of the food product has been dispensed from the container. Such systems often have waste rates of ten to fifteen percent or more of the food product which is not dispensed from the container and often require threading the hose from a new bag through the pump arrangement which adds complexity to both the mechanism as well as the task of replacing the disposable food product container.
Another known system utilizes a hanging bag which is suspended generally vertically in a heated chamber. A hose is connected to a fitment located on the bag and is pinched off by an "iron utter" clamping apparatus to control dispensing. Gravity influenced squeeze bars which are located a fixed distance from one another are placed over the bag to move cheese toward the bag outlet fitment for dispensing. While this provides an improvement in the amount of cheese dispensed from the flexible bag container, some of the cheese food product remains in the bag due to the fixed distance between the bars.
It would be desirable to provide a dispenser and a flexible bag for use in connection with such dispenser which provides for both simple operation and is reliable in use for dispensing substantially all of a viscous product from the flexible bag, and in particular for dispensing all of a viscous food product from the bag. The dispenser and apparatus also preferably provide for more economical packaging and dispensing of the viscous liquid product.